Conventional radar detectors detect electromagnetic signals (such as microwave signals) or laser signals transmitted from radar or laser-type speed measurement equipment, such as police radar signals. Thus, radar detectors serve to provide advance warning to drivers who are being monitored by police radar. However, radar detectors are an imperfect technology. Radar detectors typically have interfaces that limit the amount of information provided to a motor vehicle operator and/or limit the ease with which a user may customize the use of the radar detector. However, increasing the size of a radar detector's display interface may be cost prohibitive.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that for many years there have been a number of tools and/or types of sensing equipment used by drivers to provide an alert to these sorts of traffic control devices, with radar/laser detectors the most common. As used herein, the terms radar detector and electromagnetic signal detector will be used interchangeably to refer to any of a number of known signal detection units capable of detecting electromagnetic signals in the X-band, K-band or Ka-band. Furthermore, the terms radar detector and electromagnetic signal detector will also be used interchangeably to refer to radar and/or laser detectors, and could refer to any electromagnetic wave detector or light wave detector. Examples of known technology in this area include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,784,021 and 5,151,701.